A very interesting space mission launched today, and it’s notable for a number of reasons. The mission is known as Polaris Dawn, and it’s the second all-private – as in not part of any given nation’s space agency or program – crewed mission into space. The first mission, Inspiration4, was launched in September of 2021 and spent almost three days in orbit with an all private citizen crew. That mission, like Polaris Dawn, was funded by billionaire-pilot Jared Isaacman. This mission will also use a SpaceX Dragon capsule, Resilience, the same one as used for the Inspiration4 mission. This mission has some pretty ambitious goals, and, if they’re achieved, will mark some interesting space firsts, and at least one nostalgic throwback.
The launch went off without a hitch (after some delays from the original planned launch date of late 2022) today, sending Isaacman and three other astronauts, retired pilot Scott Poteet, and SpaceX engineers Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon into orbit.
Here’s a video of the launch:
The orbit that the crew is being launched into is one of the significant elements of the mission: the planned highly elliptical orbit will have an apogee – the highest point in its orbit, or, I suppose you could say the furthest point from the center of the Earth – of about 870 miles. This will make the Polaris Dawn mission the furthest crewed mission from Earth since the Apollo missions, which, to be fair, left Earth orbit entirely and went into lunar orbit.
A better comparison might be the Gemini XI mission in September 1966, when the two-astronaut Gemini capsule docked with the Agena target vehicle in Earth orbit and used that vehicle’s engines to propel them into an orbit with an apogee of 853 miles. If all goes well for Polaris Dawn (by the way, I keep wanting to type “Prairie Dawn,” which is the name of a Muppet) it’ll just beat the Gemini altitude record by, what, 17 miles to set a new Earth orbital altitude record.
So, that’s exciting; in reaching that high orbit, the spacecraft will spend some time in the Van Allen radiation belts, and experiments and research will be conducted during that transit.
The other Big Thing planned is that Polaris Dawn will attempt the first private spacewalk. It’s not expected to be too ambitious a spacewalk, with the participants – Isaacman and Gillis – keeping hold of the spacecraft at all times while being connected to a 12-foot tether.
To accomplish a spacewalk, SpaceX had to design all-new spacewalk-capable spacesuits, which you can see here:
That’ll be a pretty big achievement, the first private spacewalk, and it’ll also be accompanied by the throwback element I mentioned earlier, which has to do with how the spacewalk will be undertaken. Because the Dragon capsule has no airlock, in order to accomplish the spacewalk, the entire crew module will need to be depressurized and exposed to the vacuum of space.
I don’t believe an EVA (extravehicular activity) has been undertaken without the use of an airlock since the Apollo missions, the last of which would have taken place in 1972. Every spacewalk or EVA that has been done since then has made use of an actual airlock – The space shuttles had an airlock, Soyuz spacecraft use the orbital module as an airlock, the various space stations launched by the US or the USSR (Salyut series, Skylab, Mir, the ISS) all had airlocks. Hell, even the very first spacewalk back in 1965 used an inflatable airlock on the Voskhod 2 spacecraft:
So, the process of de-pressurizing the whole capsule in lieu of an airlock is kind of an interestingly retro way to do this.
The mission is expected to last five days, and I just remembered there is one more notable even happening on the mission: the first space-rated Doritos will be flown, and, presumably, consumed.
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Conventional, Earth-bound Doritos would be disastrous for space hardware due to the orange Dorito-dust that gets everywhere and likely eats through spacecraft hulls like the acid blood of a Xenomorph. These re-engineered Doritos use an oil-based coating that is supposed to be safe in microgravity environments, making the snacks finally safe to eat beyond Earth.
The whole mission is also raising a lot of money for St.Jude’s Children’s Hospital, even the Doritos part, so that’s a good thing, too.
I’m curious to see how everything plays out, and I hope they manage to achieve all of their goals; it’s pretty incredible to see a mission of this complexity being achieved without the support of a major government’s space program; it’s a good reminder of how far we’ve come.
Rotary (Dorito) engines in space now? Yummy
“Van Allen”
All I can think of is Van Halen in space. “Might as well JUMP!”
So dumb maybe a dumb question, but if the previous “space suit” wasn’t capable of a space walk, then what the heck was the point of that suit?
Like are the old “space suits” basically just a fireproof jump suit with visor helmet? It seems like even if you don’t plan a walk outside the ship you would still want your suit to have all the capabilities of a space walking suit in case of a loss of pressure?
Because your still protected by the capsule in the event of the leak, and the pressure isn’t immediately gone.
I suspect heating and cooling is the biggest part.
Heck no. A pressure suit protects you in case of pressure loss, with the assumption that you’ll have a nice hard spaceship around you. An EVA suit is basically a miniature jointed spaceship, and would probably injure you if you wore it during spacecraft ascent, descent or landing.
Experiencing depressurization inside a hard-sided capsule is a VERY different environment than an actual spacewalk. Inside the capsule, all the suit needs to do is hold air in so you don’t get vacuumed. Outside the capsule, the suit needs to maintain pressure but it also needs to protect you from the ridiculous radiation and temperature, and it needs to be tougher against micrometeorites and such.
This why is a Mercury shiny suit(which was not used for spacewalking) looks so different from the big bulky white Gemini and Apollo EVA suits.
It could mean that yhey might be able to hold pressure, but they can expand in high-vacuum environments, which means not being able to go outside the spacecraft
Will the astronauts be listening to “E.V.A.” by Perrey and Kingsley while performing an EVA? If so, that would be epic.
Now I would like to see a collaboration between Katy Perry and Sir Ben Kingsley.
The lack of an airlock gives me the willies for its lack of redundancy. I’m sure they have redundant tanks and whatnot, but an entirely separate pressure vessel is infinitely more safe.
What happens if they can’t re-pressurize the ship after the EVA? Does everyone stay in their spacesuits and they make a hasty, unplanned retreat to the safety of Earth’s atmosphere before their suit air expires?
I know that it’s expensive to send up a mission like this, but it does seem like we’re looking at a lot of variables at once. A spacewalk in a new suit, in the Van Allen belt, without an airlock (I’d really want an airlock so that it’s not everyone on board testing the limits of the new suits–some could be observing from relative safety). Plus (and this is the first place I’ve seen including this important detail) new Doritos in space.
Also, the Doritos seem uncomfortably close to the potato chips that led to disaster when Homer Simpson went to space. If they’re taking an ant farm, they’d better be taking an inanimate carbon rod, just in case.
Not sure I’d trust a SpaceX suit out there, but good for them
I’m sure those two stranded astronauts would like some Doritos.
And a ride home.
Doritos in space? Mazda did say the rotary was well suited to hydrogen power.
“These re-engineered Doritos use an oil-based coating that is supposed to be safe in microgravity environments, making the snacks finally safe to eat beyond Earth.”
Until the explosive diarrhea.
On the bright side, timed correctly that can be used as an emergency thruster!
So I read “Van Allen Belt”, “spacewalk” and “privately funded” – Is Marvel trying to reboot the Fantastic Four into real life?
Movie marketing has really gone batshit insane in the last decade…
Thank you Torch- I really do enjoy these non-car-but-technically-still-automotive articles, and particularly the space history part.
So, should we be worried now, or wait until Elon Musk purchases a 17th century French chateau and reassembles it in Texas?
Actually a disturbing common theme between the philosophies of Musk and Drax…..
I mean… Cool… But it’s a bit of misdirection to say a lot of money is being made for St Jude’s when you know, if these people actually cared about that a whole lot, they could forego the hugely expensive joyride to space and just give all that money as charity instead of as a tax write-off on this silly adventure to make themselves feel better…
There’s a pretty large number of people who are building careers on this work. The money isn’t just burned. It’s invested in communities.
And some people can only psychologically enjoy their hobbies if they find a way to connect them with a cause.
I’ve run into several people at car shows who insist their hot rod was built to help the community with fundraising, which, as far as I can tell, might just consist of going to shows sponsored by nonprofits or sticking a donation jar on the ground next to it. I mean, nothing wrong with it, exactly, but I also feel like you should be able to give yourself permission to just do some things you enjoy for their own sake, and accept that every single activity doesn’t need to have an altruistic purpose behind it, especially when the connections are tenuous at best.
I think this is also just a pre-emptive move to offset any publicity pushback for yet another Billionaire In SPAACE!™.
The way I see it, those guys are in the same stage I am in Skyrim right now, after playing it for 10 years and amassing all the gold I’ll ever need and then some. Space race, Titanic submersibles, virtual reality, even the comparatively quaint mega yachts – they are essentially the equivalent of modding your game to see what happens.
I’m not saying its burned, and what they’re doing is really cool. It just seems disingenuous to say that it’s done “for the kids”
I don’t think it’s disingenuous. Is it purely altruistic? No. But the alternative is that the billionaire goes to space and another pockets all the profit. Instead, the opportunity was taken to raise $240 million specifically for St Judes, funded research and development of crewed spaceflight outside of the purview of government entities (not to dismiss them), and put individuals in space that otherwise wouldn’t be considered, adding some edge cases to the data on humans in space.
The reasons people get bent out of shape about billionaire space tourists aren’t lost on me, but there are tangible benefits, and in the case of inspiration 4 and Polaris Dawn, they benefit the standard group of engineers, technicians, suppliers, and support staff involved and still manage to raise millions for St Jude’s.
Related:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?si=8Nhb8tmDl7D8NSD9&t=0m54s&v=fXk2Ts-Mt2c&feature=youtu.be
For what it’s worth, Inspiration4 – one of the crew members of which is a former St. Jude patient and now works for St. Jude – did end up raising a lot of money for the hospital. Two seats were given to the hospital, the second of which was raffled off, and in all the hospital received nearly a quarter of a billion dollars from the mission. One of the newest buildings on the campus, dedicated entirely to research, is named the Inspiration4 Advanced Research Center.
Like, sure, people could have just given money to them, but people usually need a reason to do so. SpaceX was used so Musk donated $40-something million. Hundreds of people donated for the crew seat raffle. It adds up.
(Disclaimer: I’ve been raising money for St. Jude for 8 years now as part of PLAY LIVE, and have been invited to visit the campus twice as part of that program. The new building really is incredible and the work that St. Jude does… well, I don’t have to hard sell it here, we all know how important it is. And PLAY LIVE is another example of people needing a reason to donate. I wouldn’t have been able to get friends to donate almost $10,000 since 2016 without tying their donations to a lot of Bean Boozled and other dumb challenges on stream.)
This is some great insight on how fundraising works.
I’ll hold my nose and try to forgot about captain d-bag’s involvement in this, because I do still love this stuff.
There is just no need to comment on your weirdly vitriolic hatred of this one person and the degree to which you hate by association all things tangentially related to him.
I see no hate on this comment, just disapproval of the company’s CEO. He puts himself out there venting every though that comes into his mind, and now he started to dabble (heavily) into politics – it is only natural that people will have strong opinions on him.
While I do agree with you that there’s no need to comment on this at every opportunity, Elon Musk makes it hard to dissociate him from the companies he owns. For better or for worse, his public image and SpaceX’s are intertwined.
And, while I’m here, let me make clear that I think this is for the worse. “Holding my nose” sums it up pretty well when I read about SpaceX.
On the Autopian “About” page, you’ll find this:
“But as detailed as things get at The Autopian, the site’s main focus is to create fun, engaging content that fosters an inclusive, close-knit automotive community.”
So I leave my politics at the door.
The things we say and do have consequences.
Fair point, and this is how I like it too. But the original commenter had a valid point, the man is becoming a liability for the companies.
Let’s carry on then 🙂
I think this might have be a response for Angry Bob? But in general I agree.
Definitely, I clicked the wrong comment!
Absolutely, and if Elon Musk’s actions have the consequence of you and others hating him, that’s fine.
But Elon Musk’s actions do NOT need to have the consequence of people commenting about how much they dislike “Captain D-bag” on an article which doesn’t even mention the guy.
I mean, the OP did say they’re trying to look past Musk’s involvement (for all intensive purposes we’re assuming Musk is Captain D-Bag, and that the captain of the vessel is not named something like Darius Bag, who gave the OP a swirly in high school). The OP is likely just saying what a lot of us are thinking when we see news about SpaceX.
Now if the OP said “I can’t look past Captain D-Bags involvement, and here’s 30 reasons why and let’s all start a comment-based spamming of the Autopian to show our displeasure” well, yeah that would be a bit more irritating.
Elon Musk is a modern-day Edison and Henry Ford, and that is not a compliment.
D.D. Harriman. Heinlein was almost too prophetic in some ways.
Is the “crunch all you want, we’ll make more” slogan limited to Boeing space missions?
Hopefully, the crew won’t go outside while they’re passing through the Van Allen Belt. Not sure we’d want those remains returned.
So in other words, after decades of flying around in the space-going Econoline that was the Shuttle (no offense Vanguy!), we’re finally getting a sexy convertible again?? Retro indeed!
We only get the convertible if they can catch up with Elon’s orbital roadster.
Can we send him to chase that down personally? I would love to launch him into deep space!
Hmm, the guy in the C1 Corvette at the beginning of Heavy Metal.